8.18.2011

Fateful by Claudia Gray

It's about a servant girl named Tess in 1912, who wants to escape from the house where she works, and most particularly the lecherous young lord of the manor. But that's not her biggest problem. While on a voyage to America, where she plans to escape and start a new life, she meets Alec, who's ruggedly handsome, fabulously wealthy, intelligent and yet so clearly troubled that she'd rather not fall for him, but she does. That also is not her biggest problem. Alec, it turns out, is a werewolf ... one cursed to change every night, unless and until he surrenders his independence and joins the Brotherhood, a pack of violently misogynistic werewolves who have been tracking him for months. You'd think that would be their biggest problem, wouldn't you?

But no. Their biggest problem -- though they don't know it yet -- is that they're aboard the RMS Titanic.

Claudia has woven history and supernatural elements to give me the ultimate historical, a love story. With werewolves. On the titanic.

The story revolves around a girl named Tess, who is a servant who plans to escape once her masters reach America and start her own life there. What ship to they happen to be aboard? The RMS Titanic. Claudia's writing is beautiful, and explains everything in such vivid detail to every part of the ship whether it was the beautiful deck or the wealthy rooms all the way down to the third-class basement where she's been thrown down too. And then she meets Alec, and their relationship was intense and sweet and I loved how so many of the subplots entwined and the fact that WHOA Alec is a werewolf was not the main focus.

Mr.Marlowe is one crazy villain. He really would stop at nothing to get what he came on the ship for, and that included not only Alec but the reason Tess got tangled in this in the first place, something from her family's chest. And he's totally willing to hurt a few people along the way, make some cruel tricks, befriend the very people who control Tess' future, and completely destroy everything he can along the way.

In other words, my kind of villain.

Another thing I liked is the fact that you know where this is going to end, because everyone knows the story of the Titanic! But Claudia still does loosely show the events of that day, in her author's note saying she didn't want to touch the deaths of that day and respect it, and i'm a sap and started crying crocodile tears. But the end is hopeful and lovely and i'm not gonna say anymore. (oh, and yeah, there is some sexytimes.)